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(I'm going to apologize in advance for any spelling, capitalization, punctuation,or grammar errors I make. I'm on my phone and it's a pain in the behind to type on properly.)

Anyway, onward to the question! I'm trying to write an OT fic, and I'm torn between third person and first person. While I generally write in 3rd person, past tense, I believe some sections in this fic could call for first person, past tense, and I'm admittedly terrible at PoV transitions.

Would it seem self insert-y if I were to write the whole thing in first person? I know there may be problems with that and Mary Sue-ism to begin with, seeing as it's an OT fic, so I'm trying to cut down on any influences which might inhibit the reader's ability to enjoy it.

Don't worry about first person perspective being self-inserty or Mary Sue-ish. It's a common perspective, even though I think it's generally harder to write, and everyone's going to interpret 'I' in the story to mean the character you're writing, not you the author. It's the content and context of the story that makes a character feel like a Mary Sue or a self-insert.

For example, if you write a character who acts as an extra member of Ash's group, gets romantically involved with your favorite characters, and is great at everything, it's going to feel like a self-insert or a Mary Sue regardless of narrative perspective. Same goes if you write an interesting and well rounded character who isn't just acting as wish fulfillment; it's not going to feel like a Mary Sue or self-insert regardless of perspective.

As for the switching perspectives, one popular technique is to write a chapter as a journal entry from one of the characters. The important thing to remember is that you have a lot of options. Don't be afraid to try new approaches!

The thing about self-inserts is that readers won't know you're projecting yourself onto the character unless they personally know you. If they don't - and that will be the case for most readers anyway - you don't have that issue unless the main character becomes a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu, but that's for a separate reason entirely. Other than that, the perspective isn't a huge factor in the enjoyment of the fic, so don't stress out too much over it. Readers read for great characters, interesting plots, thought-provoking narratives, etc.

Anon6: See, I didn't think of it that way, and that definitely is true! Maybe I've been RPing with my friends for too long to think of first person as the character, and not me.

Ah, also very true. It depends on character development, then? Another thing I should work on then, I suppose!

Hah! Thank you! I'm glad to be here. I love having places to share stories.

Psyanic: I've tried to make a habit of not letting my real life (Or even internet) friends read what I write anyway, simply because friends are nice to friends, whether it's writing, or what they wear. I'd rather have a harsh, contructive criticism than "Oh wow, this is really good!" and having the person reading it leave it at that.

I don't know if it's already too late to give advice, but...
I usually only write 3rd person myself. And sometimes, when crafting my stories, specially while focusing on characters, there's this feel "huh, I just made this character here have all these feelings, and thinking all this stuff about other characters/the world/etc. I'd like to transmit this for the readers, but danm, I'd have to suddenly change to 1st person for him to transmit this stuff to the public....."
Or sometimes I'm thinking "huh, I'm writing 3rd person, but this is a mistery story and I would like only the main character pov to be transmited to the readers, so I would have to change to 1st person....."

And then! When I'm almost surrendering to 1st person, the 3rd person past-tense reveals to me it's true powers! =D
I come to the realization that 3rd person is unlimited in terms of writing, and nothing that is done in 1st person can't be done in 3rd person.
I'm serious, try writing a paragraph or so in 1st person and them change it to 3rd. See if that doesn't work out just as well.
Even the characters feelings and thoughts can be transmitted trough the 3rd person.

Some examples:

Quote:

Alice was sitting by his side in the waiting room. Jesus, how gourgeous she was! He couldn't stop staring, even aware of the fact that it would be truly embarassing if she realized what he was doing. Adam was such a bastard for having her all for himself...

Quote:

She ran like hell out of that castle. Really, she was running so fast she thought she might trip and fall at any moment. Her legs became tired in no time. Danm, what years of just sitting on a chair in front of a computer can do to a person... Suddenly, she stopped. Computer, that's right! She had forgotten Gary's computer on the castle! Realizing this, she felt like she would pass out any moment. What would they do without the computer? Would they be destined to be in this world forever?

Yes, I've given some pretty exagerated examples, but even stuff like this isn't unheard of on the writing world, and is totally ok to do :3
There are a lot of "types" of 3rd person narrator. It can be omniscent, and can be not, it can show a lot of povs in the history, it can show the pov of only one character.....
Harry Potter is a famous example of a book where the 3rd person only really shows what Harry sees, what he thinks, and what he feels. His feelings and thought are always transmitted throught the narrator to the readers.

Well, just saying this stuff because you said you liked to write 3rd rather than 1st. :3
And I'm a lover of 3rd person. In 3rd person, you can show the readers what all the characters on the story are thinking and feeling, not just the main character~
(sorry if I ended up writing too much)

Oh, wow! That's actually amazing advice. I'm a fan of 3rd person as well, and the only time I've ever truly considered 1st person is for a dream sequence. I was toying around with the idea for this Fic though for practice, but so far, 3rd person has won indefinitely! Thanks for giving me your input too, Mosaicrole!

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